On Location
by J. Peterson
Summary: Cinematography story 2. Success has both upsides and downfalls, and being apart from the one you love is never easy.
1. Departure

**Disclaimer:**  
Mai HiME and all its characters belong to Sunrise. Not mine, no profit, no grounds for legal action. Should anyone take any, they'd only end up looking foolish, I'm sure.

**Author's Notes:**  
This follow-up to _Behind the Scenes_ has been lurking on my harddrive since January, and is, at this point, extremely short when compared to the other bits I've been posting lately. Oh, well. It was a poignant stop-point, and I can always add more.

_Kiotsuketene _- "Be safe" (near as I could figure out, anyway)

Thanks for reading.

**On Location**  
Departure

* * *

It was a gray, cold morning. Enough that one appreciated the crowds that seemed to be forever and hopelessly linked with mass transit. The amount of people broke the bite of the late December wind, and only those who found themselves on the outside of the circle of pedestrians really needed to protect themselves from the chill. Those in the middle stayed relatively comfortable as they waited for the light to change, and some were surreptitiously studying one of the people standing at the very front of the crowd.

She _was_ an unusually beautiful example of humanity – tall and of a slender build, but still with the curves of a woman in all her youthful prime; simply dressed in slacks, heeled boots and a long coat - but that wasn't the chief reason for the curious gazes she attracted. No, it had more to do with the fact that even though the sharp gusts of wind were pulling roughly at the few locks of long, wavy hair that had escaped its bindings, she wasn't reacting to it at all.

_Desolation_. That was the feeling she seemed to emit to the very air around her as she stared unseeingly across the road and towards the train station on the other side. Her back was straight and her shoulders pulled back – her face a neutral mask. But still, there was such an aching sadness about her that it almost rolled of her in waves.

Who, did the curious ones briefly wonder, did she say goodbye to at the airport behind them all?

xXxXx

"_Shizuru..." A hand – gloved in soft leather in deference to the chill in the terminal –touched her face. "It's okay. It's only for a few weeks."_

"_I know," she responded, and covered the hand with her own. "But I'll still miss you."_

"_Tch." A soft smile as the other gloved hand came up and wiped carefully at her eyes. "You always do this when I leave."_

_She chuckled wanly in response; cheered by the humorous tone in her lover's voice as much as by the gentle and very public affection that was still so new between them. "Then perhaps Natsuki should stop leaving."_

_Natsuki's lips tightened. "I'd bring you if I could."_

"_I know." But she had duties of her own to attend to; contracts that needed negotiating in Kyoto, two new hires that needed settling in both at the office and in their new apartment in Fuuka, not to mention an entire company to move. Natsuki, meanwhile, was needed on location, and would meet up with Jessica there when the redhead finished her holidays with her family in England._

_Shizuru sighed softly and captured one of Natsuki's hands; deftly removing the glove before kissing the palm she uncovered underneath._

_She looked so different now, did Natsuki, compared to the mental image Shizuru still carried of the distrustful young girl she'd fallen in love with… Gods, over ten years ago. Even though she was casually dressed for the flight, there had been a noticeable upgrade from the 'teenage' casual of worn jeans and a hooded shirt to the distinctly 'business' casual that now adorned the young woman before her._

"_It really is quite unfair of you to go," Shizuru noted. "Especially looking the way you do."_

"_Hm?" Natsuki moved willingly into the offered embrace in spite of the other travelers passing by, and brushed the tip of her nose against the side of Shizuru's jaw. "Looking what way?"_

_It took some doing, but Shizuru managed to suppress the laugh that threatened to bubble up. Instead, she placed her lips directly against the edge of Natsuki's ear and spoke very softly and very intently for several seconds._

"_Shizuru!"_

xXxXx

In spite of her low spirits, her lips twitched now as the recalled the perfectly fire-engine red blush she'd gotten out of Natsuki that way. One for the road, she'd argued as she'd halfheartedly dodged the younger woman's attempts at capturing her in the minor chase that had followed.

One for the road, indeed. Shizuru sighed softly as the light finally did change, and joined the mass around her in crossing to the train station that waited on the other side.

Just as the two of them had expected, the award that FNK Productions had won had resulted in a lot of interest in the small, independent company. It was a double-edged sword; also just as they had expected, resulting in both better earnings and more interesting tasks to perform, but also in more time spent apart, since Natsuki often had to travel to perform her duties, while Shizuru needed to stay hands-on with the studio and its dealings.

Today was a perfect example of that. A new contract to film a short about the KGB and the Soviet government had resulted in Natsuki going to Moscow for the next 3 weeks, while Shizuru had to stay behind in Japan. The young men they'd met a few months previous were relocating to Fuuka at the beginning of the new year, and she had to take care of getting them settled in while also monitoring the moving of their entire offices to the new building they'd bought into as of January.

Shizuru settled her briefcase by her feet as she came to a stop at the correct track; an overhead monitor confirming that the _JR WEST Haruka_ would be departing for Kyoto shortly. The trip from Kansai International to there would take her roughly 70 minutes, and within another 20 she expected to arrive at her parents' home, where she would be celebrating the New Year as per Natsuki's request.

_And really_, she privately agreed with her now sadly absent lover, _where better to celebrate than around all those temples? _Of course, she would have much preferred it to have Natsuki there with her as well.

Shizuru shook her head a little and forced herself to focus on the colorful display of the ticket machine in front of her. Thanks to the simplicity of the journey she was taking this time around, it only took her a few presses of the buttons – destination, one-way or return, for today? – before she could slip a 5000-yen bill into the available slot. A few click and whirrs later, the device spat out her ticket along with two 1000-yen bills and a couple of coins.

_Kyoto_. She rubbed her thumb across the destination printed on the blue paper, and for a split-second, she swore she saw the kanji change to _Moscow_.

"_The JR West Haruka will be arriving in… one… minute,"_ a cheerful voice announced by way of the overhead system. "_Please stand back from the tracks, and have a pleasant journey."_

She almost – almost – spun on her heel and started running back to the terminal. The only thing that stopped her was the sound of powerful engines overhead, and her heart sank as she watched a bright, white fuselage with twin stripes of red and black soar past the opening to the gray skies above. It could have been any other of a dozen different planes leaving that day. But somehow she just _knew_.

"_Kiotsuketene_," she whispered to the image of the red crane on the white tail, and if those around her thought it was the rush of cold air from the train pulling in that made her eyes tear up, then that was their problem. "Come home soon."


	2. Meaning

**Disclaimer:**  
I don't speak a lick of Japanese, and I've never visited the country. I've done my best to cross-reference any words, locations and other bits used, but nothing is guaranteed to be any more accurate than anything else you find online.

For legal disclaimers, please see chapter one.

**Names:**  
Just to make it clear, 'Fujino' is far, far more likely to denote someone who lived on or near Mt. Fuji, for instance. As for my use... eh, call it creative license.**  
**

**Language:**  
Since Shizuru's currently in Kyoto, incorporating some _Kansai-ben_ came naturally. As it does vary from _Kanto-ben_ (Tokyo dialect, which is apparently considered 'standard' Japanese and what I presume the canon-characters to be speaking), using the romaji form of the few words I've stuck in here also seems to add more flavor than simply translating them entirely. The ones you'll find are:

_- Maido_ – 'hello', although if someone were to say _maido ookini_, they'd be thanking you.  
_- Oideyasu_ – 'welcome'; used instead of (for instance) _irashaimase_. Seems specific to Kyoto.  
_- Sunmahen_ – 'excuse me'; equivalent to _sumimasen_.  
_- -chin_ – Kansai variety of _-chan_.

Oh, and if you haven't already, you might want to read _Behind the Scenes_ before proceeding any further. It should, at least, give you a better idea of what's going on in this little off-shoot of the ShizNat-verse. Bit late to point that out in chapter two, but oh well, ne?

Enjoy.

**On Location**  
Meaning

* * *

It was, Shizuru decided as she tipped her head back and studied the clear, blue sky above, very much a typical winter's day in Kyoto. Even though the clock was steadily moving from mid- to late afternoon and the earliest signs of approaching dusk were started to rear their heads, she supposed that she still had another half an hour or so before sunset. Plenty of time for her to finish the marginally short trek from the subway station to her parents' small townhouse.

_Click clack_, went the heels of her warm boots on the neatly maintained pavement, and the snippets of conversation she picked up as she moved with and around the thinning crowd left much the same impression on her as they did on the cold air; misty, faint – memories halfway remembered. Fleetingly expressed and quickly faded, but warming against the winter chill all the same.

Inside the pocket of her coat, Shizuru's hand twitched.

"_Waugh!" A yelp of surprise behind her, followed by the jolt from a stumble she could feel tugging on her hand. "Dammit, woman, slow down! Don't pull my arm outta the socket!"_

_She giggled and kept running. "Kanin na, but I have so many things I want to show Natsuki."_

"_You don't seriously expect us to cover the entire—" Another jolt, followed by a yelp in an unfamiliar voice. "Sorry! -the entire city in a weekend, right?"_

"_Anything's possible if you plan for all eventualities!" she sing-songed, and weaved through a group of very surprised people. "Sunmahen!"_

"_Have you planned for the eventuality of me **keeling over from exhaustion**?!"_

"_Not until tonight, no."_

"_Oh, for... Shizuru!"_

The very first time she'd ever brought Natsuki to Kyoto, she remembered with a half-smile as she came to a halt by an intersection and waited for the light to change. They never did manage to cover everything she had wanted to during the long weekend they'd spent here before returning to school. They had, however, certainly given it a good try; covering – among other things - Daigo-ji Temple and taking in the annual Hanami Festival at Maruyama Park like obedient tourists, but also visiting several of Shizuru's childhood haunts.

She _had_ been forced to severely thin out her itinerary, she recalled as the light switched to green and she proceeded across the street. If only because Natsuki had started to stubbornly wrench her hand free whenever she sped up too much. They had visited several times in the close to seven years that had passed since then, though. Enough that at this point in time, Natsuki was probably as familiar with Kyoto as Shizuru herself was.

Shizuru stepped off to the side of the walkway and stopped there as she turned her face towards the east; easily enough accomplished since the streets in the Kamigyo Ward had – like other streets in the oldest parts of the city – been aligned to follow the four cardinal directions. Other pedestrians passed her by unhindered as her eyes found the first star in the darkening sky, and a quick calculation told her that it would probably be at least another 7 or so hours before Natsuki landed in Moscow.

Hopefully, the three weeks that would pass before they saw each other again wouldn't actually take the eternity that they felt like right now.

She would just have to keep as busy as possible, Shizuru decided as she resumed her journey. And – a slightly encouraging thought – at least she wouldn't be entirely on her own over the next few days. Returning to their empty, silent house in Fuuka honestly didn't feel like a particularly enticing idea. Not that silence was an uncommon thing in their little household – the longer they knew each other, the less the two of them needed actual words to communicate. She'd long since been able to practically read her lover's mind from the tiniest of twitches in Natsuki's facial muscles, and judging by the often eerily insightful little actions the younger woman was prone to, it was presumably a two-way street.

Like how a cup of white peach tea would mysteriously appear at her fingertips within five minutes of her starting to feel tired in the evenings; how there was always a few boxes of E-ma Green Apple in her top desk drawer at work, or how strong fingers would start probing tense muscles before she even got the chance to roll her shoulders after a long day.

The single box of the hard candies that she'd brought with her rattled softly inside the briefcase she was carrying, and Shizuru smiled to herself as she turned onto a familiar side-street and effectively left the half-crowd behind her. She reciprocated, of course, although with Natsuki's pocky-habit while at the office, keeping _her_ drawer stocked with various kinds of the sweet was practically a full-time job in its own right. She couldn't think of a single time where she'd entered Natsuki's own office and _not_ found the younger woman hunched over her keyboard with one of those sticks waggling up and down between her lips as she muttered to herself. Unless, of course, Natsuki wasn't in her office at all, which was often the case.

"_Boo." A soft whisper against the back of her ear as she was peering through the half-open door, and Shizuru jumped slightly; though more in surprise than anything else. "You blocking my doorway for a reason, Fujino?"_

_She turned to see Natsuki standing beside her in the jeans and polo that she usually wore to work; a short stack of folded papers in one hand and a mostly-evaporated stick of mikan-flavored pocky protruding from the crooked, half-grin on her face._

"_I never need a reason to get in Natsuki's way," she responded with a slight grin of her own. "So no."_

"_Hm." The green eyes twinkled as the younger woman brushed by – and against – her and slipped inside. "Come on in, then." Natsuki crossed the smallish room and hopped onto the corner of her own desk. The remainder of the candy was crunched in short succession as she dropped the papers next to the computer monitor, and Shizuru shook her head as she watched her lover fish out another, already opened box – honey this time – and immediately pop the flavored end of the treat into her mouth._

"_Shorry," Natsuki muttered around the stick – holding it gingerly in her teeth as she reclaimed the papers and started leafing through them. "Hadta run down'a the editin' bay. Kaito ish pishing me offsh."_

_Meaning that he hadn't cut one or more shots the way Natsuki had wanted him to, Shizuru mentally translated. But even if Maname Kaito's personality seemed to clash horribly with her lover's at times, he was one of the finest young editors in the industry, as well as exceptionally good at taking direction from those he respected – as long as he himself didn't find what he deemed to be a better way._

"_Was he right again?" she guessed, and quickly squelched a grin as the dark head shot up and the green eyes narrowed._

_Natsuki glowered at her for a few seconds longer, then removed the pocky, stuck out her tongue and turned back to her papers with a shake of her head._

Shizuru made another turn – north this time – and it was only another few minutes before she was walking through the tiny front yard of her childhood home. The lot was small like most in this area, and the square-footage of the house had been distributed across three stories to leave some space aside for a garden; the better – if not that much bigger – part of which was behind the house and away from the street. Currently, only the ground floor had any lights on, which fit well with the time. Her mother, she presumed as she reached the door, had most likely started preparing dinner in the kitchen, while her father could probably be found either in the back yard tending to the garden, or in the small study.

Those windows were dark though, she noted with a glance to the side as she knocked on the door, and the street lamps flickered to life behind her as she waited.

"Shizuru!" The door had barely opened before she was pulled into her mother's familiar arms, and Shizuru chuckled and let her briefcase hit the ground with a soft thud as she returned the warm embrace. "_Oideyasu_, darling. It's so good to see you again!"

"_Maido_, Mama." She kissed the faintly wrinkled cheek and smiled. "It's good to be seen."

Fujino Shinju, Shizuru knew, was where she'd gotten her unusually pale hair and – in Natsuki's words – 'infuriatingly proper' manners around people in general. But that seemed to be where the similarities ended. For one, she stood a good head taller than her mother, who also had clear, crystal-blue eyes and a thin, almost whippet-like build where Shizuru herself was decidedly more curvy and even somewhat broad-shouldered.

"Come in, come in!" Shinju batted her hands away and claimed the briefcase with a haughty sniff. "Don't you dare! The nice man who brought your other bags yesterday certainly wouldn't let your old mother help out." A tutting noise. "As if I couldn't carry two suitcases to the second floor on my own. Really!"

"Yes, Mama." It was a struggle to hold back the giggle that desperately wanted to burst forth, but she managed somehow. Her mother was the picture of grace and elegance in public, much like Shizuru knew herself to be. But in private... Shizuru shook her head as she followed her mother inside the house, and sent a mildly apologetic thought towards the shipping company that had transported most of her luggage to Kyoto.

"Well, then..." Shinju closed the door behind them both and set the briefcase back down next to the narrow staircase across the small entryway. "Why don't I fix you a cup of tea to warm you up while I finish dinner, hm?"

"Mama." Now Shizuru's voice was mildly scolding. "At least let me help. And none of that nonsense about me being a guest," she swiftly continued when she saw a glint in her mother's eyes that she'd seen in her own mirror several times. "I'm family; rules concerning guests don't apply."

"Yes, yes." Her mother waved a hand at her. "Tch, you're so stubborn. Heaven knows where you got _that_ from."

"Indeed," she agreed mildly, though she couldn't quite keep her lips from twitching.

"There's my Shi-chin!"

The booming voice was the only warning she got before she was swept up by strong, muscular arms and pulled into a tight hug that smelled of the cologne her father had been partial to for as long as she could remember. Then she was swung through the air as the older man twirled, and while the dizzying sensation was enough to make her giggle, she was also feeling very much like the proverbial apple of her father's eye.

"_You probably wouldn't have earned the rich kid reputation if your father had raised you alone," came a muffled voice._

"_Pardon?" She glanced up and peered at her companion. Both of them were lying on the bed in the guest room – Shizuru's old bedroom - though where Shizuru was on her front with her notes on negotiating propped against a pillow, Natsuki was on her back with a history book from one of her electives covering her face. "How do you mean?"_

_Natsuki chuckled. "I mean that your dad's a little too rough and tumble to be considered high society. Your mother practically reeks it."_

"_True." Shizuru smiled. "None of them really are, though."_

"_Have they ever been?"_

"_Oh, certainly. Mama more recently than Papa's family." She turned a page, then reached out to tweak the strip of exposed skin on Natsuki's abdomen in exchange for a choked squeak. "She was a Toyotomi before she married, but since her family didn't approve of her marrying someone they thought was 'below' her, she was essentially made a persona-non-grata."_

_The book slid down to reveal surprised, green eyes. "...they don't talk to her?"_

"_Well, her younger siblings do, at least. Mama seems at peace with her choices." She propped her chin in one hand and grinned, just a little. "Although I'd dearly love to look up her parents and inform their medievally noble selves exactly how far below the Toyotomi-clan the Fujino family ranks."_

"_I'm almost afraid to ask, when you put it like that," Natsuki admitted with the quirk of an eyebrow._

_Shizuru chuckled and closed her notebook, then set Natsuki's schoolwork aside as well and kissed her nose just because it was there. "Maybe we should see how Natsuki's lessons in Japanese history are coming along then, hm?" She watched the green eyes roll, and smiled. "Fuji-no, yes? It's an off-shoot of the original name and happened centuries back, but the bloodline is intact, all the same."_

_The younger woman scowled. "Again with the riddles. Can't you just talk like a normal person?"_

"_Where would the fun be in that?" she wondered philosophically, and chuckled at the sigh she got in response. "Now, I know that there is a brain beneath that lovely hair..." The blush made her smile. "...and that you've covered both the Asuka and Heian periods. Just think about it."_

_Natsuki frowned but closed her eyes, and she watched the pale lips move soundlessly as she – judging by the words she could infer from the motion – ran through bits of her classes. Then the green eyes popped open. Wide open._

"_Fujiwara?!"_

"_Ara." She swiftly hid a laugh behind one hand at the absolutely gobsmacked expression on the face beneath her own. "I knew Natsuki could do it."_

"_You're a friggin' **blue-blood**?!"_

_Ew. "Not hardly." Shizuru wrinkled her nose at the thought. "I might have been if I had been born several hundred years ago, but now it's a very faint purple, at most."_

"_Buh..." Natsuki scrubbed a hand over her face. "The Fujinos are part of the Fujiwara-clan?"_

"_Thankfully, no, given how much trouble Natsuki seems to have with the concept," she pointed out bemusedly. "Not officially, at least, though judging by studies done a dozen or so generations back, the blood is probably purer in us than in many other branches."_

"_Hm." Arms wound around her neck. "Well, as long as you're not gonna be swept off to be the next Empress or something."_

_She grinned against soft lips, and felt them smile in turn. "Not unless there was an absolute genocide first," she murmured. Then they were kissing; languid and tender. It lasted several heartbeats, and she had to take a few breaths before she could speak when they paused._

"_I thought Natsuki had to study history."_

_A dark eyebrow arched dryly. "You telling me this doesn't qualify?"_

_Shizuru just laughed._

"Ah, Shinju!" Shizuru was rather glad that her father kept a steadying arm around her shoulders when he finally set her back onto her own feet; she wasn't entirely sure that her spinning head would allow her to remain standing on her own just yet. "Look at the loveliness we produced!" A warm, callused hand patted her cheek gently. "And those eyes! The most beautiful eyes in the world!"

The most beautiful eyes in the world rolled as their exact match twinkled at her from her father's face. Those, along with the height and sturdy build, were what her father's genes had granted her. Fujino Hiroshi was only a scant 5 inches taller than his only child, with thick, slightly unruly chocolate-brown hair and a lean muscularity that effectively made him look roughly ten years younger than he actually was. He was, as Natsuki had often pointed out in tones of voice that varied from amusement to exasperation, also clearly the provider of Shizuru's at times outright devilish sense of humor.

"I've always preferred her hair, myself," her mother gamely returned as she crossed through the kitchen doorway and reclaimed an open space at the counter, which was currently featuring a stack of vegetables, as well as a thick, wooden cutting board and an assortment of knives waiting in a sturdy block. "Those Fujinos and their red eyes," she tsked. "One would think there would be some variety at _some_ point, but no. Red, red, red!"

It was an old, familiar topic that she'd heard her parents teasingly bicker about since she barely came up to her mother's knees, and Shizuru merely shook her head while her father chuckled.

"Now, now, dear wife," the deep voice returned the volley. "It's imperial red, at least, as befitting such an old line." A large hand swiped the deftly-flung slice of carrot out of the air, and he crunched it contentedly while his wife scoffed. "Just because we don't enjoy the wealth of old any longer, doesn't mean we should forget where we came from."

"Yes, yes." Shinju waved a stick of celery at him. "Not that old story again please, lest I fall asleep with my face in the saucepan."

Shizuru didn't quite manage to suppress a snicker. The old story in question was one she knew by heart as well, since this scene and its predecessors led to it without fail, unless her mother managed to derail the trail of conversation much as she had just done.

Up until some point in the 17th century, the Fujino family had been one of the wealthiest households in Japan, but a few successive generations had disproved the adage about them having 'too much money and not enough vices to spend it on'. The line had dropped from social elite to middle-class laborers in less than 50 years, and that was pretty much where they were now; though her parents – the current heads of a once-large family that now counted less than a dozen living individuals including the three of them– had at least lifted their own household to _upper_ middle class.

A rapid, scrabbling sound caught her attention and made her miss her father's reply, and Shizuru made a small sound of surprise as something impacted the back of her leg.

"Yip!"

"Ah?" She turned and felt her eyes widen in surprise at the small, black and white akita puppy that now sat on the floor behind her and shook its fluffy head dazedly.

"Hm?" Hiroshi turned as he felt his daughter do so, and then grinned as he scooped up the little dog. "Sumi-kun! How kind of you to join us!" He cradled the puppy against one strong arm and closed the eye on that side as his face was thoroughly licked. "_Maido_, Shizuru-onee-chin," he then continued in an unusually high voice as he waved one tiny paw at her. "I'm your new baby brother, Sumi. Please take good care of me!"

Shizuru started laughing. "A pleasure to meet you, Sumi-kun." She smiled as the fluffy head turned towards the sound of her voice, and watched the puppy snuffle at her for a few seconds before tiny paws found purchase on her collarbone. Sumi whined and licked the tip of her nose, and she closed her hands carefully around his tiny body and hefted the small weight easily as her father released him. "Aren't you just the cutest thing on four legs, hm?"

"Hold still," came her father's voice, and she shifted her gaze just as there was a flash of light; needing a few seconds of blinking before her vision cleared enough that she could see Hiroshi grinning at the back of the digital camera he'd dug out from somewhere. "Ah, lovely, just like any other picture of my Shi-chin," the older man announced. "Now, did your mother say something about some tea for you?"

"I did," came Shinju's voice from the kitchen. "And it's getting cold."

"Wait, Papa." A thought struck her, and she fished her phone from her coat pocket and flicked through the options until she'd managed to open the camera function. "Would you take one with this, too?"

Her father was only happy to oblige, and Shizuru saw Sumi's fuzzy ears perk up as the puppy turned his attention from her chin to the new activity suddenly going on.

_Natsuki would love this_, she thought, and smiled as she heard the click of the photo being taken.

_She would absolutely love this._


	3. Arrival

**Disclaimers:**  
Like last time, let me clarify that I've never been to Russia, nor speak a word of the language. I cross-reference everything I use if at all possible, but again, I guarantee no accuracy.

For legal disclaimers, please see part one.

Sidenotes for this chapter that I didn't want to take up space here, can be found at my LiveJournal (posted Oct. 12 2012) – the link is in my profile.

**On Location**  
Arrival

* * *

The slight bump of the 747 touching onto the runway jolted Natsuki out of the half-doze she'd managed to sink into for the past hours, and she blinked rapidly to relieve her dry eyes as the cabin lights came on and the reverse thrusters kicked in with a high-pitched hum. Murmurs rose around her as the other passengers started preparing to disembark – in words if not in actions just yet, and the soft _ding_ of the overhead system made her glance up over the seat in front of her to see a black-clad attendant claim the mouthpiece.

"_Ladies and gentlemen, __welcome__ to Domodedovo International Airport_," the young woman announced politely. "_The date is Friday, December 27th, the local time is currently 9:32 pm, and the outside temperature is minus 6 degrees centigrade_."

_Urgh_. She covered her mouth as a yawn threatened to dislocate her jaw. No wonder she felt so exhausted. In terms of time zones, Moscow was 5 hours behind Japan, and her own body was was therefore perfectly convinced that it was actually half past two in the morning.

"_For your safety and comfort, we ask that you please remain seated with your seatbelt fastened until the captain turns off the 'fasten seatbelt' sign_."

And yet again, Natsuki considered as she let her head drop back against the seat and closed her eyes, she'd apparently missed whatever swearing-in ceremony it was that occurred without fail on every flight the world over, in order to turn a pilot into a captain. Her nose twitched slightly as the attendant continued, and she let her overtired brain bat around the idea of 'personal belongings', and exactly what other kinds of belongings there _were_.

Public ones, maybe? One green eye cracked open and studied the bottom of the overhead bins. She had no idea how anyone would fit something like a park bench inside one of those, though she'd certainly seen plenty of strange things happen during her affiliation with air travel. Like the crazy woman who'd stowed a massive floral arrangement with hand-blown glass decorations into one of the compartments. The thing had, of course, exploded with a rather spectacularly loud crack once they started climbing and the cabin pressurized, which had sent the poor flight crew into a panic and almost made the plane to turn back before the cause had been discovered.

_Yeah, yeah, yeah_, she thought grumpily as the announcements continued_. Captain says this, captain says that. Tell the captain that Lieutenant General Kuga says to pull this oversized foil tube over and let us out, already!_

She sighed softly and turned her attentions to the passing lights lining the dark runway outside. Alright, so she was in a bad mood, she acknowledged silently to herself. She'd never enjoyed flying, it was way too late, she was way too tired to have to worry about finding a hotel she could barely pronounce the name of in a city she'd never visited before, and damn it all, she missed Shizuru.

Natsuki scowled, and her own, faint reflection in the small window scowled right back.

_It's only for a few weeks_, she'd told her lover back at Kansai International. Only. She sighed again and finished her phone from her pocket to turn it back on as the aircraft stopped moving. That was swiftly followed by the sound of several hundred seatbelts clicking open at the same time, and - a few seconds later – by the ding of the 'fasten seatbelt' sign being turned off. Having spent the past nine hours plus in the window seat, Natsuki wasn't needed to get out of the way in order for anyone else to join the throng of people immediately flooding into the aisle and tugging out their carryons from the overhead bins – sometimes at great personal risk to themselves as well as others. Instead, as the space next to her was vacated when its occupant rose irrespective of the lack of room to move away - he got stuck with his neck bent at an uncomfortable angle beneath the low ceiling – she laid her seat back down and folded one arm behind her own neck to wait.

_That strategy never works_, she thought at the few people who had practically torn up to the front of the plane, only to find themselves met with a still-locked door and a jetway that hadn't even been attached yet. _Idiots_. Natsuki was undoubtedly not gonna be the first one out of the aircraft, she mused as she studied the mass of humanity taking up every available inch of standing space in their impatience to get out. But she _was_ going to be feeling the most comfortable until she _could_ get out, seeing as how there was now a surplus of room against the sides of the fuselage.

The phone came alive in her hand, and after a few seconds of it figuring out where it was and finding a network to connect to, it buzzed cheerfully. A quick glance revealed the cause of the buzz to be a message from her lover – including a photo of some kind judging by the size of the file received – and she toyed with the idea of opening the message for a few seconds before haltingly deciding against it. She was self-aware enough to know that she wouldn't be able to keep her face from reacting to even this minimal contact with the woman she already missed something awful, and she'd rather have that reaction happen in a more private location than around a few hundred grumpy travelers.

Natsuki thumbed the little alert box out of existence, and instead flicked through her options until she found her way into the small collection of games she'd installed on the phone over time. She considered her options and easily tuned out the mumblings of the remaining passengers before finally settling on a puzzle-game, and spent the following minutes switching around wooden blocks to free a specific one and get it to the exit point. After 12 completed levels, the light from the other side of the aisle was no longer blocked by a throng of people, so she locked and re-pocketed the phone before getting to her feet and sidestepping into the walkway herself.

Much easier this way, she decided as she tucked her carry-on – a simple backpack – out of the luggage bin and slung it over one shoulder before starting her own trek to the exit. She dug a slight smile up in response to the friendly farewell from the waiting crew, and tugged the light jacket she'd worn closer around her body as she left the relative warmth of the aircraft in favor of the distinct chill in the gray, carpeted jetway. _Minus 6_, she remembered as she reached the large windows that heralded her arrival at the terminal building itself, and sent a glance through them to see the layer of snow that covered the ground outside, and the seeping darkness of the tarmac underneath where large and small wheels had turned the snow into slush. _So at least 15 degrees colder than Kyoto_. She shivered slightly at the thought, and was glad that she'd packed heavier clothes, even if they were all in her checked luggage.

The building was thankfully much warmer than the jetway, and as the sliding door – appropriately enough – slid shut behind her, Natsuki relaxed her grip on the jacket and rubbed a hand over her eyes. The chill of the expanding walkway had at least woken her up a little, but the sudden shift from cold to warm was rapidly serving to reinforce her fatigue, and all she really wanted to do was to get a hold of her suitcase, find her hotel and collapse on the nearest flat surface.

A few glances quickly centered her gaze on a sign reading _Baggage claim_ in English, and what she assumed to be the Russian equivalent in the unfamiliar Cyrillic lettering above it. All Natsuki was worried about, however, was the arrow pointing her the right way, and she walked away in the direction given; soon swallowed up by the crowd of travelers.

xXxXx

"___Rejs shest'sоt pyatnadtsat' iz Hitrou pribyvaet k vyhodu nomer dvenadtsat'_."

"Great," Natsuki muttered in Japanese as she glanced up at the loudspeaker above her head, then refocused her attention on the slowly revolving belt. "Thanks for letting me know." She'd vaguely recognized _Heathrow_ in what had otherwise been nothing but a series of random noises to her untrained ears, but the rest was lost on her and she wished – not for the first time – that she'd been able to find the time to at least pick up some basic, Russian words.

Spending time with Shizuru before she had to leave had won out over that idea without too much trouble.

"_Flight 615 from Heathrow is now arriving at Gate 12_," the loudspeaker chimed in again, this time in English.

God, she hoped communication with her hosts at _Kino Mockba_ – or _Cinema Moscow_ as it was known outside the country – wasn't going to be a problem. It was a bit much to hope that any of them spoke Japanese, but with the world as it was, there was a very good chance that several of them at least spoke English, which Natsuki herself had become fully fluent in during the semester she'd spent studying in Scotland during her college years. _Kino Mockba_ was an old company, at least according to the research she'd done before accepting their request to help with this project. The corporation had been part of the Russian film industry since the dawn of silent movies, and retained a firm, wide-spread footing in the market well over a century later.

Not at all a bad bridge to build, she decided as she zeroed in on her own suitcase among the dozens of others, and pulled it from the belt before extending the handle and dragging it away from the crowd. If she could do it well enough. If not, it was a very, _very_ bad bridge to burn, since _Kino Mockba_ was probably one of the best options a Japanese studio had of branding themselves on the European market. Not that they actually had any plans for that ambitious a move, but it never hurt to be prepared for all eventualities, right?

_Right._ Natsuki nodded to herself as she passed from the baggage claim area and into the publicly accessible part of the terminal building – a massive, open space with white ceilings and polished, pale stone flooring. The lights above were spaced evenly in long rows, and it reminded her irresistibly of the landing strip lights – except these lamps were white. The amount of eyes that settled on her the second she stepped through the double doors was huge, and the sheer size of the waiting crowd almost surprised her until she reminded herself that it was – once again – just barely 10 pm here. At least, she considered as she took in the number of white signs she could see with writing on them, she wasn't the only stranger arriving. She easily recognized Latin lettering proclaiming names that looked anything from English to Italian, Cyrillic and Chinese characters, and even a few signs with Japanese kanji on them.

She blinked in surprise when the some of the kanji characters registered.

_Kuga Natsuki_.

Well. She certainly didn't remember anything about anyone picking her up, Natsuki considered as she moved off to the side, but it wasn't in any way unthinkable either, since her temporary employer had been practically courting her for this project. The man holding the sign looked to be in the very first years of his thirties. He stood at about six feet from what she could tell, was of a slender build with broad shoulders, sandy hair and a clean-shaven, professional air about him even though he was simply dressed in jeans and a sweater.

"I'm Natsuki Kuga," she told him in English as she reached him, and bowed lightly at the waist. "I guess you're expecting me?"

"Kuga-san." The man had very pale eyes, but although they were the color of green ice, they lit up warmly as he greeted her. "Indeed I am." His English was as fluent as her own, though the way he spoke was more guttural that she was used to hearing – probably due to him being Russian, Natsuki decided, since her admittedly limited exposure to the language had at least shown her that it was apparently produced using the throat moreso than English, which tended to happen at the front of the mouth.

During her little mental walkabout, her new acquaintance had put his sign away, and now held out his hand, which Natsuki took and shook firmly.

"I am Aleksei Il'ich Volkov," he told her. "I have been assigned to be your local guide during your stay, Kuga-san." A smile. "My first task is simply to assure that you are transported to the _Kadashevskaya_ and properly settled in after what I'm certain was a long journey. Then tomorrow, I will collect you form your hotel in the morning, and make sure to have you returned shortly after lunch."

"Lunch?" she wondered as Aleksei shrugged into well-fitted, woolen coat that he'd reclaimed from across the back of a nearby bench.

"Russia essentially operates on a five-day work-week," he explained as he started the two of them off through the crowd after a failed attempt at taking control of Natsuki's suitcase. "Where everything is open Monday to Friday, the government offices are also in service for half a day on Saturdays. So while we will have to ask that you rise early in spite of a late night, you'll have half a day to relax afterwards, and of course all of Sunday off for your own purposes."

That was... extremely well-planned and more than just a little considerate, Natsuki decided. And uncharitable as the thought felt, also a little surprising to her, considering what they were paying her for this and what she'd found out about the Kadashevskaya Hotel via the Internet. Had she been the one to shell out that kinda money on what was essentially a foreign consultant, she probably would've been a little more concerned with getting her money's worth out of them. Of course, the _Kino Mockba_ people could also simply be of the school that days off were sacred, but work was _work_.

Either way, she considered as they passed into the cold, Russian night, she had every intention of showing them that they had indeed chosen the right person for the job.

"My car is just over here, Kuga-san", Aleksei told her as he undoubtedly noted her shiver, and nodded towards a recent-looking, black BMW 6-series sedan that was waiting patiently only a few rows back from the terminal entrance. "I'll turn the heat up as soon as possible," he then offered sympathetically.

Under normal circumstances, Natsuki probably would've blustered at the assumption that she was some frail flower that needed a hothouse to survive in, but as things were at the moment, she was exhausted and the thought of a warm area to spend the drive to the hotel in honestly sounded pretty good.

The mode of address he was using for her had caught her attention, too, since it wasn't the most common way of referring to people in this part of the world. Which in turn brought to mind something else.

"What do I call you?" she asked him over the hood of the car after her suitcase had been settled in the trunk.

Aleksei laughed quietly as he unlocked the doors and they both settled into their respective seats. "Well, I can propose this." The engine started with a well-tuned, low roar. "I will refer to you as Kuga-san, and if you ever decide to invite me to use your first name, you may call me Aleksei. Until then, my family name with whichever Japanese suffix you prefer is fine." A pause, as the sleek, black car backed out of its space. "A fair trade, Kuga-san?"

Natsuki felt her body sink into the leather seat as warmth started seeping from it, and nodded. "Fair enough to me, Volkov-san."

xXxXx

It was just barely 11:30 pm by the time Natsuki closed the door to her hotel room behind her after having settled a bilingual _Do Not Disturb_ sign in the outside doorknob. _Or_, she reminded herself as she slumped against the wooden surface, _around half past four in the morning_. Her body was now well beyond the point of merely being tired - enough that she could feel her emotions threatening to go haywire - and Natsuki groaned as she pushed away from the door and moved towards her suitcase. With a little luck, she could be under the covers and passed out in ten minutes or less.

"Hey." She paused and blinked as she worked the suitcase open. "Where did you come from?"

The good-sized, gray wolf resting on top of her clothes didn't reply, of course, but she wasn't really tired enough to have actually expected it to, either. With a slight shake of her head, Natsuki lifted the plushie free of the bag, and glanced down as she herd a familiar rattle. "What the..." Shuffling noises as she pushed some of the topmost clothes out of the way, followed by a grin. "Aww, check that out."

Several boxes of pocky had been carefully nestled amongst her belongings, and now the colorful designs winked cheerfully at her in the warm lighting provided by the hotel lamps.

"_Shizuru?" She paused in the doorway to their shared bedroom and tilted her head. "What are you doing?"_

_The older woman finished zipping the black and blue suitcase shut before glancing up at her with a slight smile. "Making sure Natsuki has packed everything she needs."_

"Hm." Natsuki perched on the edge of the bed and studied the plushie. "So pocky and you is what she considers 'everything I need', huh?" The smooth, gray fur was soft between her fingers. "Well..." She hugged the toy and caught a faint whiff of a familiar perfume clinging to it. "Not really. But I guess she couldn't really stuff herself in there, right?"

The wolf grinned an open-mouthed, tongue-lolling grin at her, and she smiled as she played with one of its soft paws. Then she felt something hard beneath the silky fur, and quirked an eyebrow as her fingertips worried at it curiously. A button of some kind?

Click.

"_Hello, Natsuki_," came a voice from a small speaker undoubtedly hidden somewhere inside the plush toy, and her breath caught in her throat at the well-known lilt. _"I hope you've arrived safely at your hotel by now. I wish I could be there with you, but hopefully Haiiro-kun here can help bridge the distance somewhat._" A pause, and a soft chuckle that made her heart ache with familiarity. "_He really is a clever little thing. For one, the software installed enables someone to record sound-files and load them into his system via a satellite connection, but it's also possible to download old files from him to a computer using the USB-cable you'll find in the pocket lining the top of your suitcase. I plan to record a new message for you as often as possible, so if you want to keep the old ones, remember that he can only hold three separate files at a time, hm?_" Another, brief pause. "_I bet Natsuki would have preferred the real thing a they say. I would have too. Sleep well, love._"

"Bet you're right", she whispered hoarsely. "Wish to hell you'd managed to stuff yourself in there."

Silence descended, broken only by the soft rasp of her own breathing.

Click.

"_Hello, Natsuki. I hope you've arrived safely at your hotel by now..."_


	4. Prejudice

For disclaimers, please see part one.

**On location**  
Prejudice

* * *

She wasn't sure if it was the lack of warmth beside her that woke her up well before the sun. Maybe, Shizuru considered as she cracked her eyes open and watched the green, muted numbers on the alarm clock across from her practically shove _4:35 am_ in her face, it was simply the fact that she was sleeping on a mattress whose feel her body identified with an earlier hour of rising. Certainly, once her eyes were open she felt wide awake, and without Natsuki next to her, there really was no good reason to lounge around.

Shizuru sighed into the silence and pushed herself up; swinging her bare legs over the side of the bed and preemptively turning off the alarm with the press of a few buttons. It was full dark apart from the glow from the digital numbers, of course – dawn was still roughly two hours into the future – and she covered a yawn and ran a hand through her sleep-mussed hair to settle it into something resembling order as she idly puzzled over the sudden return of a habit Natsuki had broken her away from years ago.

"_Are you absolutely crazy?"_

_The deep, sleep-hoarse voice caught her attention as she poked at the alarm clock a scant minute before it would actually ring, and Shizuru peered over one shoulder to see the faint, reddish light reflect off of half-open green eyes turned chocolate in the gloom. It was early Sunday morning, the first time Natsuki had stayed over in her college dorm room after the two of them had embarked on a romantic relationship, and that really wasn't the 'good morning' Shizuru had expected._

"_I beg your pardon?" was what she settled on to reply with, and raised her eyebrows questioningly._

"_Ngrrrrgh." Natsuki burrowed into the pillow with a growl, and Shizuru felt a pleasant shiver skitter down her spine as a bare calf brushed against her own at the younger girl's maneuvering._

_Small beds were both a blessing and a curse at times._

"_I said," came the voice again, and turned her mind from the subject it was swiftly heading towards, "are you crazy? It's not even dawn yet."_

_The one green eye that was visible over the top of the fluffy pillow was glaring balefully at her from behind a few locks of obsidian hair, and the sight was so hopelessly adorable that Shizuru couldn't help but smile as she turned to face her companion._

"_I usually rise at this time," she explained; leaning on one elbow and settling her head in the palm of her own hand. "I haven't really the time to practice my naginatajutsu during the week, so I try to make up for it on Sundays."_

"_At half-buttcrack in the morning?" came the grumbling complaint and accompanying scowl, and Shizuru felt a clue fly in the window and smack into the back of her head._

_She reached out to brush the hair away from Natsuki's face. "Would you rather I stay here with you?"_

_The scowl – impossibly – deepened, and she felt a blush heat the soft skin under her fingertips as she traced a single, high cheekbone. And waited._

"_...yes."_

_Ground out from behind clenched teeth. Forced, but... she watched her companion's face soften and flush; the green gaze dropping to the mattress even as Natsuki's shoulders tensed uncomfortably. But unquestionably true._

_Shizuru scooted closer – not that there was much closer to get – and crooked one finger underneath her companion's chin. That finger pushed up carefully, and she waited in silence until now shy, uncertain eyes met her own; both of them, since the decrease in distance between them made Natsuki have to turn enough for her entire face to be visible._

"_Then I will," she promised softly – simply – and something in the green eyes seemed to click into place. Then they closed, and as she settled back under the covers, she felt Natsuki curl into her arms with a gentle, contented sigh._

Shizuru smiled quietly at the memory as she rose from the still-warm bed and flicked on the bedside lamp to let a low, soft light cradle the small room. The bits and pieces she'd filed away from the very earliest parts of their relationship were some she liked to revisit as often as possible. Everything had been so new then – so uncertain and exciting at the same time, and although the first, tentative steps they'd taken held a sweetness that was all their own, she did honestly prefer the matured, more faceted relationship that she shared with Natsuki now. There was a solidity between them now; a sureness that had built over the years as they both slowly proved to each other in a myriad of tiny ways that their love was the result of not only circumstance, but of the numerous, conscious and unconscious choices they'd both made to commit to it.

She expected Natsuki to be there for the rest of their lives, and knew that Natsuki expected the same of her. It had nothing to do with taking each other for granted, and everything to do with the two of them wanting and needing each other in ways that overruled anything else and saw them through any hardships that they ever had or ever would face.

And that, she considered, as she set about replacing her sleepwear with a the form-fitting but comfortable clothes she'd brought along for just this purpose, was the sweetest part of the whole thing. Even disregarding the whole malarkey about destinies and stars and prophesies, it hadn't been easy for her and Natsuki to get to the point they were at now. The road was long and they were still traveling it – still learning about themselves and each other, and occasionally stumbling as they felt their way forward.

Shizuru turned to the single window in the room as she tied her hair back and out of the way, and watched her own reflexion eye her wryly. It also made them miss each other all the more when they were apart, of course, but that was at least an acceptable trade-off for the simple joy that being together brought them both. She crossed her arms and shook her head a little as she peered out of the window at the surrounding houses – dimly and only partially lit by the lamps lining the street. There was the thinnest layer of frost on the rooftops outside, and it glittered in the yellow light while the power-lines moved in what she deemed to be a slight breeze.

Joy in life. Shizuru's breath coated the glass in front of her face, and her gaze turned inwards while the opaque mist spread rapidly out, and then slowly contracted again. There was a time where she'd thought that was something she'd never have again, and it startled her a little to realize how far back that time really was.

Nearly a third of her lifetime, actually.

The red gaze refocused, and she studied her own reflection in the glass again – almost surprised at the sight that met her. She certainly wasn't a teenager anymore, she decided as she peered at the dimly lit, somewhat unfocused figure mirrored in the window. The last vestiges of what was commonly known as 'baby-fat' had faded years ago and left both her face and body with a slender tone that was only enhanced by the addition of a little extra height to a frame that – for most Japanese women – was already taller than average. Dressed as she was now in a sports-top that exposed her arms and encircled her torso tightly, the mass of elongated, slender muscle adorning her figure was also more easily visible than usual; certainly more so than they had been during her high school years. She didn't look buff, per se, nor did she particularly want to – appearing merely strong and sturdy was absolutely fine.

Much like Natsuki, which wasn't all that surprising since they usually worked out together and tended to follow mostly the same routines.

"Definitely not a teenager any longer," she noted to herself, and then turned her head as there was a soft knock on the door. "I'm up, Papa."

"Ah, good." Hiroshi ducked around the door with a smile, and closed it softly behind him in deference to his wife. Shinju was still sound asleep and likely to remain so for at least another hour and a half, since she in no way shared her husband's and daughter's penchant for rising 'earlier than birds who'd practically drowned themselves in espresso'. "I padded the staffs last week in case I'd get the chance to spar with my Shi-chin."

Shizuru smiled. Her father had always referred to the detailed, wooden practice naginata he kept as 'staffs', for reasons he either couldn't or wouldn't explain. The padding wasn't for safety reasons. It was more a matter of soundproofing out of politeness, since no rooms in the house were large enough for father and daughter to spar in, and the sound of heavy clacking was very likely to wake up the still-sleeping neighbors when they remedied that by sparring outdoors.

"I'll collect them on my way out," she told him, after correctly identifying Hiroshi's clothes as the ones he slept in.

"Very well."

Shizuru watched her father leave, and seated herself on the edge of the bed as she silently pulled on a pair of warm socks in deference to the cold weather. She considered wearing a jacket – or at least a long-sleeved shirt over her current one – but eventually decided against it. The chances she got to spar with her father were few and far between, and the slow warm-up that she partook in when sparring with Natsuki was usually bypassed entirely so they both could make the most of the opportunity.

"_Tell me again why I need my hands wrapped?"_

_Shizuru chuckled at the exasperated tone as she continued with that very task; carefully circling strips of soft, white cloth around Natsuki's left palm, while the younger woman studied her already wrapped right hand curiously. "Because Natsuki isn't used to handling pole-arms," she explained. "Prolonged use for beginners can result in splinters, obviously, but also bruises, blisters and enough wear to cause bleeding."_

"_Hm." Natsuki was regarding the bandages with a look that suggested that she wasn't entirely convinced. "I've never seen you use them."_

_Shizuru finished in silence and tucked in the end of the cloth before testing the sturdiness of the wrapping with a slight tug. "I'm not a beginner," she then responded, turning her hand over and displaying the subtle calluses that lined her palm and the inside of her fingers. "Naginatajutsu has been practiced by my family practically since the weapon was invented – I've been training since I could stand on my own."_

_Soft, cool fingertips trailed over her own skin, and Shizuru felt a faint, pleasant shiver make its way down her back – both at the sensation and at the easy way in which Natsuki now did something like that._

"_These always kinda gave you away."_

"_Hm?" The soft voice pulled her from her idle enjoyment of the touch. "How do you mean?"_

"_These," Natsuki repeated, and ran a finger over the extra layers of skin at the base of her palm. "You don't get this from holding cups of tea." A pause, and a faint twitch at the corner of her mouth. "Not even as many cups as you grab during a single day. That's how I first knew you were more than you made yourself out to be."_

"_Just from those?" She let her face fall just slightly, but it swiftly turned into a half-grin when the green eyes rolled in response._

"_I meant in regards to fighting," Natsuki groaned, and then sighed. "But yeah, I knew there was more to you in other ways long before that." Pause. "Happy?"_

"_Quite."_

Shizuru's palm tingled all over again as she stood and claimed a pair of well-worn trainers from the suitcase that lay opened on the floor. It was, she admitted to herself, just a trifle on the ridiculous side. Only lovesick nitwits would miss someone this badly after less than twelve hours spent apart.

She exhaled against the windowpane again, and carefully drew the kanji for Natsuki's name in the mist. A few seconds passed in silence as she studied her work, and then finally traced two simple, slightly curved lines around it.

"One nitwit," she muttered wryly as she eyed the heart, then spun on her heel and headed for the door. "...en route."

xXxXx

_Well_. Shizuru eyed the passing traffic with as much of an annoyed look as she allowed herself to show in public; waiting as she was to cross the street not far from the offices of a Kyoto-based production company where she'd just whiled away the better part of the afternoon. _That was about as productive as spending two hours beating my head against a brick wall._ She glowered at the light as it refused to change to green, and resisted the urge to rub at her temples.

She'd secured an appointment within the largest Kyoto-based production company, in the hopes of extending the reach of FNK Productions from southern Japan into the center of the country. It had taken a few tries – the better part of them fruitless and met with firm, somewhat snobbish resistance – but she'd finally gotten somewhere once she tried contacting them again a week after the Yamagata Film Festival. The award they'd won there, much as Shizuru had expected, had turned out to be her foot in the door, and she'd finally nailed down one of the upper echelons for an extended meeting that was supposed to end in contract negotiations, with FNK taking on a few, sample projects for the larger company.

What had actually happened was that she'd been kept waiting for an hour and forty-five minutes, and then spent the remaining quarter hour being talked at by an older man who hadn't taken kindly to her gender, her age or her sexual orientation – the last of which was certainly common knowledge in the business by now. The entire experience had held all the charm of a bag of poisonous snakes, and to say that Shizuru was angry would be putting it mildly.

Honestly, it annoyed her to have her otherwise good mood derailed in this way. The day had started off so pleasantly, too. She'd spent a few hours sparring with her father until she felt an old, familiar ache in muscles that just didn't get that kind of challenge most of the time. Then they had all had breakfast together before her parents had left for work, and she'd whiled away the rest of the morning alternately playing with Sumi-kun, loitering in the reaches of cyberspace on her laptop and – once it had gotten late enough – trading messages with Natsuki. Then she'd left for – and arrived at – the offices of EI-ga Incorporated, and the day had just gone downhill from that point on.

Prejudice wasn't new to her; she'd encountered various forms of it all her life. Even when the true nature of the relationship she shared with Natsuki had been kept under wraps in their professional life, there had been instances of them facing narrow minds outside the office – both in regards to themselves, and also aimed at their friends.

"_Hey! What the hell do you useless little halfwits think you're doing?!"_

_Shizuru counted a round half-dozen of them – older high school students judging both by their uniforms and the fact that they'd come across them on the campus of the public high school in Fuuka – all standing in a narrow, closed-off area behind a high fence and one of the gymnasium walls, and all surrounding a similarly dressed, downed figure with familiarly shaggy, black hair._

"_Kenji." She took advantage of the moment of surprise and confusion their arrival had caused, and used it to grab the boy's hand and quickly pull him to safety. "Good to see you," she told him softly as she guided him to a position a few steps behind Natsuki, and felt a hot cord of anger lash at her at the sight of the blood staining his white shirt and the lurid bruises already forming on his face. "I'm glad we thought to come looking for you when you were late."_

"_Double that here," the boy groaned, and spat a mouthful of red onto the ground while leaning on his knees. "Bastards started following me after classes let out. I tried to lose them."_

_Shizuru patted him on the back. "Stay here," she advised, and got a grunt in reply that she took for agreement; then stepped back into place next to Natsuki. It was a very touch-and-go situation, she decided. As in, the touch the two of them applied to it would determine the direction in which it would go. Diplomacy seemed to her to be the better thing to try first, since she doubted that the two of them, dressed in jeans and a t-shirt and slacks and a blouse respectively, seemed particularly threatening.  
_

"_Well?" Natsuki demanded. "Are the lot of you little brats mute **and** stupid? Or do you only have any guts when it's six against one?"_

_Shizuru shrugged mentally as that drew a chorus of snarls from the group of boys facing them, and felt her own balance shift subtly without any conscious prodding on her part. Well, diplomacy had never been Natsuki's strong point._

"_You two better run unless you want a helping of fag-boy's dinner, too," one of the boys growled menacingly; stepping forward and cracking his knuckles. He, Shizuru inferred, was apparently the leader of this little gang of wannabe thugs._

"_Yeah," another one spoke up. "Beat it, bitches, 'less you wanna taste of our style of nightmares."_

"_Catchy." Natsuki slid forward in less time that it could've taken any of them to blink, and backhanded the second speaker into the fence. "Come on then, dream-boy."_

"_Ara." Shizuru easily noticed and identified the intent of one young man, and deftly stepped in front of him before he could close in on Natsuki's back. She nailed him with a savage elbow to the jaw that actually lifted him off of his feet before the impact sent him reeling. "You really should watch your step." A swift heel to the gut made him cough violently, and the following, vicious jab of a pointed shoe to his kidney incapacitated him sufficiently. "You might hurt yourself, hm?"_

"_Pays to have the best watching your back, boys." Natsuki ducked under one hook and landed a series of gut jabs in reply – then sent her current focus to the ground with a teeth-rattling uppercut._

"_Natsuki does say the nicest things." Shizuru weaved around a clumsily aimed high kick and grabbed her assailant's leg at full extension – pulling sharply just as she made the boy's other knee buckle with a well-placed kick of her own. He wavered as his balance was summarily destroyed, and a carefully planned and elegantly executed fist to the temple dropped him like a rock._

_Some deeply ingrained instinct honed from a lifetime of martial arts warned her, and Shizuru dropped to a crouch a split second before a punch whizzed through the air above her head. A foot emerged in her peripheral vision, and she shifted her weight onto her hands and lashed out with a powerful leg sweep that caught the second bully off-guard and sent him onto his back. He scrambled to his hands and feet..._

_...and ran away._

_Shizuru cocked her head curiously as she looked around – not quite believing what she was seeing. There were three figures on the ground, her own latest adversary was out of sight already, and she barely caught the tail end of Natsuki's first opponent as he tore around a corner at the end of the building. The accounted for five of the six, and the last one – the one she'd pinned as the leader - was currently being pinned again; this time to the wall by her glowering lover._

_All in what she judged to be around thirty seconds. Shizuru shook her head. Amazing, or perhaps merely pathetic; depending on whose performance one was judging, of course._

"_Typical fairy," the leader spat. "Hiding behind some skirt, huh?"_

"_Behind these skirts?" Kenji straightened painfully, and wiped at the steady trickle of blood running from his split lip. "Considering that either of these two ladies could kick all of your asses to kingdom come while blindfolded and with both hands tied behind their back?" His choice of words caused two very similar twitches on two very different faces. "You bet. I'll hide behind their skirts any day."_

"_Stinking fa—gllgh!"_

"_I suggest you watch your mouth," Natsuki growled; twisting her grip on his shirt lapel and constricting his throat further. "Or I might just see exactly how long it'll take me to turn you into Julienne Human Being." A beat, and a disgusted look. "If you can be classified as that."_

"_He does seem a little dim," Shizuru noted as she got to her feet and offered a handkerchief from her pocket to Kenji. The glare of the lead bully didn't escape her, and she regarded him dryly in response. "Well, you do," she told him firmly. "You've hardly even noticed that there's now three of us..." she indicated herself, Natsuki and Kenji. "... and only one of you."_

"_And considering that it only took two of us to wipe the floor with the six of you..." Natsuki smiled humorlessly. "I don't think the odds are in your favor. So here are the terms." She pointed towards the injured Kenji, who was pressing Shizuru's handkerchief to the cut in his lip. "If anything happens to him again, we'll assume it was you. Believe me, it takes a long time to heal from something like the broken shoulder I'd be happy to introduce you to, and you strike me as the type of idiot who's made lots and lots of enemies." Pause. "They'd probably love to see exactly what you're made of when word comes out that you and your sniveling little tagalongs got your asses beat by a couple of 'skirts'. So if you have any brains in that over-inflated head of yours, you will shut your mouth, say 'yes Ma'am' and **piss off**. Are we clear on that?"_

_Shizuru read the sudden tension in the bully's shoulders as clearly as she would an open book, but she could also tell from the faintest of twitches in one exposed arm that Natsuki had interpreted it as well. So she stayed her own reaction, and instead merely winced as the blow that would have knocked pretty much anyone else back was simply redirected, and answered with a powerful knee to a very sensitive area._

"_All things considered, are you alright?" she asked Kenji, while she watched Natsuki pick the now crumpled and squeaking boy back up by the front of his shirt with an annoyed grumble._

"_Apparently the words I'm using are too big for you," the younger woman snarled. "So let's try it again." She curled her hands tightly in the clothes covering the young man's chest and lifted him clean off his feet before shaking him vigorously. "Kenji go hurty, you go ow-pain-no-have-kids! YOU GET POINT?!"_

_Kenji snickered quietly. "Believe it or not," he muttered. "I've never been better." He smiled without thinking, winced slightly as the motion jarred his injured mouth, and then settled for a crooked smirk that pulled at the other corner of his lips. "These guys have been hounding me for months. Not to this point, but today..." He trailed off, and shook his head. "Watching you two take them out was very... satisfying."_

"_Mm." Shizuru met his warm, brown eyes and gave a slight smile of her own in reply. "Answering violence with violence is never the ideal solution." She cut her gaze back to her lover and her prey – who was now looking a little green around the gills as Natsuki continued to shake him almost cheerfully – and felt a surge of satisfaction herself, that they'd been able to help this young man who'd become a good friend to them both. "But sometimes it is the most readily available and efficient one."_

"_Only if you're good enough," was the low answer, and she acknowledged the compliment with the quirk of an eyebrow._

_Whump!_

"_Stupid little bleeping sons of bitches," Natsuki cursed fluently as she joined the two of them after having dumped her previous entertainment on his rear._

"_Ara, such language," Shizuru tsked. "Natsuki is setting a horrible example for Kenji-kun."_

_She got a definite 'look' in response. "Natsuki could always set a better one by tickling Shizuru until she begs for mercy."_

_Shizuru giggled, and heard Kenji's deeper chuckle from her left. Her intent had been to break her lover's concentrated irritation, and judging from the way the tension now eased from Natsuki's body as a smile tugged at her lips, it had worked._

"_C'mon, kiddo." Natsuki slung one arm around Kenji's shoulders. "Let's get you cleaned up."_

_Shizuru met the free arm that reached for her as they walked, and let it wind around her own before their hands met and their fingers twined. "You," she whispered very, very softly, right against a well-shaped ear. "Are an absolute crusader. I love you."_

_And Natsuki blushed. Badly._

The light finally changed, and Shizuru crossed the street along with a few other pedestrians, light as the crowd was since the official work day wasn't over just yet. The motion seemed to help in draining away the anger, and she rolled her shoulders under her jacket to loosen them while mentally reviewing the brief time she'd actually spent with the man she'd come here to meet.

He'd called her every name in the book – not outright, as he had been smart enough to realize how that could potentially lead to legal problems – but the smarmily polite and underhanded way in which he'd so thoroughly offended her - offended _them_ - had pushed all the wrong buttons, to a point where she'd lost her temper enough to make several pointed promises. Ones that, Shizuru admitted now that she'd cooled down some, she probably shouldn't have made.

Promises like that only held any weight if one could follow up on them, after all, and to have FNK Productions take over EI-ga Inc. was... well, a bit of a tall order at this point.

Not much purpose in crying over spilled milk, however. Shizuru pulled her phone from the inside pocket of her jacket as she turned into the Shijo subway station and made her way towards the ticket gates. Sometimes, she reflected as she slipped her mother's railcard into the reader, stepped through the gate and reclaimed the card on the other side, being the constant underdog just got really old, really fast, and that probably also helped explain why she'd lost her temper earlier. As much as they'd managed to establish their company in the industry, they were still new, still small and still on shaky ground in terms of permanence. They were seen as 'negligible' by many other Japanese firms, and it was tiring to constantly have to bite and claw their way to any notable recognition.

But... Shizuru thumbed her way into the messaging application on her phone and started composing a missive while leaning against a concrete pillar. She figured that she should at least warn Natsuki that they certainly weren't going to secure a bite of the central Japanese market by way of EI-ga Inc. Not now, at any rate.

That done, she pushed away from the pillar and gave it a little pat as she continued towards the tracks; weaving her way through the thin crowd of tourists and commuters as she went. The railcard found its way into the purse slung over her shoulder, but the phone remained in her hand. She knew, after all, that Natsuki was up and awake, and busy though she might be, Shizuru was nevertheless quite certain that a reply wouldn't be long in coming.

As if on cue, the phone buzzed gently.

_Fuck 'em_, the message read in Natsuki's typically blunt style and Shizuru smiled as she could practically hear her lover's voice speak the words. _If their shirts are that heavily stuffed, they're not worth your time, anyway. I'll see what I can do about helping you make good on your promise. But you owe me one, Fujino._

She stopped in the middle of the floor, and felt her eyebrow quirk in way that would have made Natsuki twitch nervously if the younger woman was able to see it. Her lips pursed thoughtfully, and then pulled into a faint grin as she composed a message containing several creative suggestions as to how she could return the favor, and sent it on its way.

The reply was nigh-instantaneous.

_Saucy wench. Come over here and say that._

Shizuru chuckled as she slid into an available seat on one of the evenly distributed benches. Her focus centered on the phone in her hands and the tenuous connection with her absentee lover, and she let the other travelers, the overhead announcements and the sound of the trains fade into the background.

This was far more entertaining, anyway.


	5. Background

For disclaimers, please see chapter one.

**Author's notes:**  
For accuracy's sake, I've made a few minor changes in Chapter 3 – **letmereadplease** was kind enough to point out a few errors I made back then, and those have now been fixed. To make it easy on you lot, here they are:

- Russian (government) offices are generally open for _half_ the day on Saturdays – not the whole day, as I stipulated. Natsuki thusly doesn't get to sleep in, though she does get half the day off.  
- Russians apparently _don't _full-name each other, as long as the parties concerned are of roughly the same age and status, or a foreigner is involved. For that reason, Natsuki is now calling Aleksei _Volkov-san_.

Now... onwards! Enjoy.

**On Location**  
Background

* * *

"_Kacha! Kacha!"_

"_Hm?" She looked up from the screen in her lap – both at the mangling of 'Kaa-chan' and at the sound of rambling, still wobbly steps against the carpeted floor. "Hey, kiddo. What are yo- whoa!" Only her own reflexes let her keep the small head from impacting rather heavily with her own kneecap. "Careful!"_

"_Cawfoh," the child echoed with a cheerful, completely unconcerned grin, and then raised its chubby arms. "Dup!"_

"_Demanding little thing, aren't you?" Natsuki set her work aside and hefted the toddler into her lap. "Bandit baby. Where's your mama?"_

"_Mama!" A small hand pointed imperviously in the general direction of the kitchen. "Da! Go now?"_

"_Demanding **and** impatient," Natsuki corrected herself bemusedly, and settled the small body on her arm as she rose. "Definitely my kid, huh?"_

"_Kacha?"_

_Natsuki chuckled and kissed the baby's head as it settled against her shoulder. "Hey," she then called out as she entered the kitchen and spotted the familiar figure by the sink. "I thought it was my turn to cook tonight?"_

"_It was also my turn to do the laundry this week," Shizuru replied over the sound of running water as she washed a series of vegetables. "But since the invisible laundry fairy took care of that for me..."_

"_Ah." She leaned in to kiss the older woman's cheek as she reached her; fully expecting Shizuru to turn her head at the last second and catch the kiss with her lips instead._

_She wasn't disappointed._

"_Giff!" a childish voice complained when they parted after a few seconds. "Giff, giff, giff!"_

"_Oh, yeah?" Natsuki bounced the baby on one arm and sent it a stern look. "Well, without all this giff, you wouldn't be here. Got that?"_

_The toddler giggled._

"_My reputation's in tatters," she decided wryly, and snickered when tiny hands grabbed for her nose. "I can't even intimidate an 18-month old infant."_

"_Natsuki..." A set of wine-colored eyes regarded her with a distinct twinkle while Shizuru shut the water off. "You could never intimidate anyone who knows your heart like we do."_

xXxXx

Natsuki was decidedly unimpressed when the shrill beeping of the hotel's alarm clock woke her up, and growled in reply to the bright red lights that practically blared 6:30 AM into her face. "Shut uuuuuup!" she groaned as she buried her face in the pillow; one arm extending and whacking at the surface of the nightstand a few, fruitless times before finally impacting the top of the clock with a thud that sent the dark room into blissful silence one more.

"Buh." The arm flopped back down to hang limply over the edge of the bed, swinging slightly with momentum before stilling. _Well_, she considered as she glowered at the murky, yellow streetlight penetrating around the edges of the heavy curtains,_ that's certainly one way to wake up._

She'd like that dream, she decided somewhat fuzzily as she rolled onto her back and stared up at the dark ceiling. Already, most of it was fading from her memory, but one thing she could clearly remember was what the child had looked like. Hair as inky black as her own, but with several soft, large waves – and a face in which she'd clearly recognized her own general bone-structure, as well as her lover's unique eyes.

Only thing missing was a clue as to exactly how they'd accomplished that, Natsuki idly reflected as a soft sigh escaped her. It wasn't like they could do it in the usual way, if they ever did decide to have kids.

Would Shizuru want children? Hell, did _she_ want children? And why in the world was she thinking about it at this hour, instead of remembering some far more pleasant ways of waking up?

_She wasn't sure exactly what pulled her fully out of sleep. Maybe it was the feeling of warm breath against her skin, or the sensation of satiny, moist lips trailing along her jawline. Or maybe it was the fleeting touch of familiar fingers tracing a swirling, feather-light row of goosebumps up the inside of her thigh._

_Either way, she wasn't planning on complaining._

"_Good morning to you, too," she burred sleepily; opening her eyes halfway to see mainly the outline of her lover as Shizuru rested next to her on one elbow – backlit by the bright, morning sunlight that penetrated the light curtains behind her. "Planning on sleeping in?"_

"_Sleeping wasn't exactly what I had in mind," Shizuru demurred, and she felt a shiver trickle down her spine as the touch went higher. "But the two of us staying in bed for an extra hour or so? Yes."_

"_An hour?" she parroted, and smirked at the sly little grin that was the sole reply. "I thought so." She wound her fingers into the loose, still-rumpled tawny hair and tugged gently, and felt Shizuru's ribs expand sharply when she trailed a return touch down the center of the older woman's chest. "No meetings this morning, hm?"_

"_I don't have anything on my calender until 10," came the murmured words; washing over her own lips from less than a breath away. "And you..." the lips came nearer – dragging briefly over her own like fine silk. "...aren't due in the trenches until 10:30."_

_Natsuki scooted closer to catch those elusive lips more firmly, and the feeling of the warm body that settled so familiarly against her own was more than enough to draw a deep groan from her throat._

"_Y'know," she muttered a few very pleasurable heartbeats later. "Just a few years ago you were doing your darndest to get me to **stop** skipping out on my responsibilities like this."_

_Shizuru chuckled – a low, lazy sound, that thrummed tenderly against the patch of skin on her throat that she was currently focusing her attentions on. "Sometimes," she purred. "It's good to be bad."_

They'd both been late that day – much moreso than planned, Natsuki recalled with a smirk as she rolled out of bed and got to her feet after giving the alarm clock another whack just because. And given that their crew was a small, close-knit group, they'd also taken no small amount of good-natured ribbing over it, since no one had any doubts as to why.

"_Oi, Natsuki!" Kimuri Miki called from his desk as she and Shizuru entered the the domain belonging to their small group of editors. "I hope I look at Ami the way you look at Shizuru-san when she and I have been together 8 years."_

_She leveled a glare at him in response, and grabbed her lover by the elbow before marching off towards her office. "Shut up and get back to work, you idiot!"_

_A thumbs-up, and a grin that was echoed by the rest of the people in the room, though Shizuru at least hid hers behind one hand. "You got it, boss!"_

Well, that sometimes was the price of loyalty, Natsuki decided as she stepped into the warm spray of the shower. Because their employees were that – loyal – and liked to embarrass them at every opportunity they got. That sort of familiarity was practically unheard of in most companies from what she understood, but it was a tool she and Shizuru had long since agreed on. Letting a place of work become one of almost family was a very effective way of recruiting and holding on to talented people, who would surely have turned their backs on them for a larger paycheck otherwise.

Besides, it meant that going to work was far more a pleasure than a chore for all involved. All in all, it was a good trade – especially since she also knew that the crew would be doing their level best to keep Shizuru company once the older woman returned from Kyoto.

Shizuru hated it when they had to spend time apart - almost as much as Natsuki herself did. The months they'd spent on different continents while they were both in university had almost killed her, and even several years after the fact, she was grateful that both of their foreign exchange programs had taken place at the same time. At least they'd gotten it over with in one go.

"_I miss you."_

"_I know," had come that achingly familiar voice through a tenuous telephone connection. "I miss you, too."_

_Half a world apart. Natsuki had closed her eyes to the darkened dorm room and curled around the phone in her hands. "Dammit, Shizuru... it's only been a week and I'm going crazy. How the hell are we gonna do this for five more months?"_

"_I don't know," Shizuru had admitted quietly. "But we will. We will get through this, we will finish our respective stays with high marks and good references, and we will both return home and build a wonderful life together."_

"_Mmrph," she'd grumbled petulantly. "Is it spring yet? It's friggin' cold here."_

_That, at least, had drawn a faint chuckle from the other end of the line. "Boston isn't much warmer."_

"_Minus ten or thereabouts, yeah?"_

"_Mm. And minus twelve in Edinburgh, isn't it?"_

_She'd smiled at that – just a little bit. "Keeping an eye on me?"_

"_Always."_

Even now, Natsuki reflected as she set about rinsing the soap off of her skin, it was hard for her to think about that time. Yes, it had been something they'd both agreed to do – something they'd both prepared for for over a year in advance. Natsuki herself had gone from barely knowing any English at all to being able to hold full conversations in it – at least with other students in her classes. But no amount of preparation had steeled her for the brutal reality of being that far away from the person that had been the cornerstone of her life for years.

It hadn't helped, of course, to realize that being 'fluent' in English when speaking to a fellow countryman was quite another thing than being _fluent_ in English when attempting to communicate with a native speaker. Natsuki had found herself to be far less prepared than she'd thought she would be, and to say that she'd felt isolated those first few weeks in a foreign country – much less proficient in its language than expected – would be putting it very mildly.

Jessica inserting herself into her life had probably been the only thing to keep her from giving up entirely. She had been the one to consistently wait for – or provide, since she spoke Japanese and therefore could translate – the words that Natsuki had to search for. She'd also been a patient coach when it came to helping her master the pronunciations of sounds that just didn't exist in Japanese, and Natsuki had no doubts that her now perfect English (and, when the occasion arose, Scottish brogue) was very much thanks to her efforts.

She was just damned glad she'd chosen Edinburgh instead of Glasgow. Much as she'd enjoyed visiting that city numerous times, the dialect was at times impenetrable even to Jessica who'd halfway grown up there, and Natsuki had spent the first two of their outings with Jessica's cousin Calum and his friends just watching in amazement – unable to understand much of anything.

"_I have no idea what these people are saying!" she whispered furiously to her native friend – in Japanese – not two minutes after meeting up with Calum and five other people she'd yet to learn the names of. "Why the hell are they calling me a chicken?!"_

_Jessica, to her credit, had managed to not burst out laughing. "They're not," she promised with a chuckle. "When someone calls you Hen, it's just because they don't know your name. If you'd been male, they'd call you Jimmy instead - or maybe Mac."_

"_Jess, what's ya talkin' oan wi yer stoater frien'?"_

"_Wheesht, ya bampot!" The redhead had smacked her cousin in the back of the head. "This oon's taken so donnae ye be getting' any o' yer ideas!"_

"_Aye, aye!" The blond man grinned – clearly not intimidated or surprised by the response. Natsuki wasn't sure exactly what was being said, but she was at least picking up on the fact that Calum apparently found her attractive, and that Jess had wasted no time in telling him that she wasn't available. "Canae blame a lad, eh?"_

"_Nae, but ye'll be gettin' heehaw oot of it, so leave aff."_

"_Crabbit face."_

"_Peely wally."_

_Calum laughed easily, and clapped the redhead on the shoulder. "Tcha, awright." He turned to face Natsuki, extended his hand and offered a smile that was charming and friendly, but also apparently heeded his cousin's warning and left it at that. "Cheers, Miss. Lemme roon' up me mates an' do th' intros."_

"_We can always keep them as confused as we are," Jessica murmured – in Japanese once more – once her cousin turned away and started shouting for his friends to join them. "Just speak Japanese to me when you lose track."_

_Natsuki stared at her. "Jess, if that's all it takes, I'll be speaking Japanese to you all evening."_

_The redhead grinned, and stuck the tip of her tongue out between her teeth. "All the better."_

Surprisingly, it had taken almost half her stay before Jess had been in the room while Natsuki was on the phone with Shizuru. Now, she couldn't even remember exactly what the redhead had said or done – or even what she herself had shot back in growling retort. Whatever it was, though, it had been enough to send Shizuru into peals of laughter.

"Wish I could hear that laugh now," she muttered as she dried off, and then wrapped a towel around herself; slinging another, smaller one over her shoulder before exiting the bathroom. A glance at the clock radio told her she still had at least another 45 minutes before her newest acquaintance would be by to pick her up – and take her out for breakfast, if her sleepily muddled memory of the previous night's drive was anything to go by.

And speaking of which, wasn't there something else from the night before that she was forgetting? Natsuki perched on the edge of the bed and started toweling her hair with one hand, while the other fished out her cellphone. A swipe of her finger unlocked it, and she curiously thumbed her way into her messages.

"Heh." The image that was soon magnified on the clear LCD display brought a genuine grin to her face. "Wouldja look at that?"

The photo showed Shizuru from the waist up, and since she was clad in her warm, woolen trenchcoat with a scarf wound loosely around her neck, Natsuki guessed that the picture had been taken shortly after her lover had arrived at her parents' house. She recognized the background after all, and the faint hint of brisk red in Shizuru's cheeks definitely marked her as someone who'd recently been outside in cold weather. She was smiling warmly into the lens – cheek to cheek with the fluffiest little akita-puppy Natsuki had yet to lay eyes on.

It was a beautiful shot – especially considering that it had probably been taken with the limited capabilities of the camera in Shizuru's own phone. Having spent the past several years of her life learning how to tell a story with lighting and angles, Natsuki could fully appreciate that fact, and she wasted no time in saving the photo and setting it as her background.

_Cute snap_, she then sent in reply – delayed as it was. _You look gorgeous, but don't you always? When'd your folks get a dog?_

She set the phone down on the nightstand and stood back up. It probably wouldn't take long for Shizuru to reply, she mused as she hung the smaller towel over the back of a chair and set about rummaging through her suitcase for some clothes to wear. Knowing Shizuru, and of course her father, her lover would have been up for at least six hours at this point. She'd probably sparred herself half to death with Hiroshi - because the two of them did that whenever they got the chance since it happened so rarely – showered, eaten and a dozen other things already.

Shizuru was efficient like that. Especially when she was bored, because there were few things she detested more than _not_ knowing how to make idle time pass.

"_Restless?" Natsuki asked when the passing form made her glance up from her magazine for the tenth time in five minutes._

_Shizuru stopped her pacing, and looked engagingly like a small kid who'd just been caught with her fist inside a nice, big cookie jar. "Not restless," she protested. "I'm just..."_

"_Trying to wear a hole in the carpet."_

"_...ikezu."_

_Natsuki shook her head and set the magazine aside. "Shizuru, just tell me when you're bored. If I'm doing something that doesn't directly involve you, chances are it's nothing that can't wait until later, anyway."_

_The older girl – because both of them were still technically that – took her outstretched hand and sat down next to her on the couch with a little sigh. "I just don't want to pull you away from something you enjoy."_

"_Spending time with you is what I enjoy most, though," she countered. "And you know me – I need you to tell me these things, because I can be pretty dense." She looked down at their entwined fingers and played idly with Shizuru's hand. "I don't usually notice that you're bored until you've gotten to this point. So I really would prefer if you'd just tell me from the get-go." A glance up into warm, red eyes. "Then I can do something about it earlier. Okay?"_

"_Alright." Shizuru kissed her softly, lingering half a breath away for a few seconds. "I'm bored," she then admitted. "Can we go do something?"_

_Natsuki grinned. "I'll drive, you set the destination."_

It was a damn good thing the two of them had had that little talk so early in their relationship, because as lazy as Shizuru could seem to the untrained eye, she was _extremely_ easily bored. Forced inactivity also tended to make her horribly irritable, and Natsuki had trained herself to spot even the earliest signs of it at this point so she could head it off at the pass, as it were.

At least, she considered as she set her warmest winter boots by the door and laid out a pair of jeans and a simple tank-top, recognizing those signs was made easier by the fact that it was something she knew well from herself – born from an alert, active mind that constantly required some sort of stimulation. The difference was, however, that where her own restlessness could usually be cured by way of video games , television or other things generally involving being a couch potato, Shizuru needed some sort of physical activity – be it a trip to the gym, a walk, a drive... anything, really, as long as it involved the outside world and its inhabitants in some way.

That was the chief difference between them, actually. Natsuki was self-aware enough to know that her own social needs were slim to none, though she wasn't entirely sure if that was due to the way she'd spent her formative years, or simply a matter of nature. At least partially proving the old saying about opposites attracting, Shizuru was an outgoing creature, and needed the interaction with others in order for her to be happy. Natsuki, meanwhile, knew herself to be practically the quintessential introvert, and could honestly be perfectly content if her lover was the only person she interacted with for the remainder of her life.

Briefly, she returned to the bathroom and claimed the hairdryer from its wall-mount. She didn't spend more than a rough 5 minutes using it – just enough to ensure that her hair would be at least mostly dry when she left the hotel – and she'd just finished brushing it through when she heard the sound of her phone vibrating in the other room.

_You're deluded, but you're sweet_, the reply to her own message read, and Natsuki's lips twitched into a wry smile as she tugged her jeans on. _Sumi-kun joined the household a little over two weeks ago. He's adorable, but unfortunately he now owes me a new pair of trainers._

"Ah, the risks of owning a pet," Natsuki commented to the silent room as she pulled her laptop from its own bag and left it to boot on top of the bed while she finished dressing.

_Claws or teeth?_ she then sent back. _And would now be a bad time to ask if you and I should think about getting a fuzzball of our own?_

The reply came by way of the messaging program on her computer, which had finished booting and automatically signed in once she'd found and entered the password for the hotel's wifi. A cheaper way of communicating between continents – not that they were hurting for money in any way – and also faster.

_Both – and I'm always willing to take on new projects with Natsuki. Besides, I think you and I might be better at training a dog. Sumi isn't badly behaved at all, but papa does dote on him a little too much._

She snorted softly, and clicked the little camera icon in the IM window before typing out a reply of her own.

_Like he dotes on you?_

The video connection picked up just in time for her to both see and hear her lover laugh softly.

"Natsuki makes a good point," Shizuru commented with the quirk of a tawny eyebrow. Judging by the background, she was sitting in her parents' living room. "Though I can't recall ever nibbling on your _shoes_."

The last word had a definite, suggestive undertone to it, and it was enough to make her blush faintly. "You have the dirtiest mind ever – you realize that?" Pause. "And please tell me your folks already left. Some things you just shouldn't know about your kids."

"Ara, with Natsuki as my inspiration, is it any wonder?" Shizuru smiled innocently. "And yes – they left for work hours ago. I wouldn't embarrass you like that."

She raised one eyebrow and just stared straight into the little camera mounted above the laptop's display.

"Not without being there to enjoy your reaction in person, at least."

"Wench." Natsuki shook her head. "Anyway, is the puppy around so I can see him in a live action kinda way?"

"And you say _I_ have a one-track mind?" Shizuru chuckled, then obligingly turned her head and whistled softly. "Sumi? Come here."

There was the sound of high-pitched yips in the background, along with the scrabble of tiny claws against the wood flooring as Sumi apparently decided that his companion wanted to play chase. Natsuki chuckled to herself as she watched her lover rise to go collect the elusive creature, and let the distant sound of Shizuru's voice talking to the puppy relax her as she opened her internet browser and found her way into the website for a local sportswear store in Kyoto. A few minutes later her order was processed and set for express delivery later the same day, and she just managed to fire off a short e-mail to Jessica before Shizuru entered the view of the camera once more, carrying one excitedly wiggling ball of fluff.

"Are you sure you want one of these?" the older woman asked as she sat back down, feigning exasperation in spite of the faint smile pulling at her lips as Sumi licked her face enthusiastically, small paws scrabbling for purchase on the simple t-shirt she was wearing. "I was fairly certain I was in good shape until I met this little one, but I must admit that he's running me ragged."

Natsuki smiled at the sight. "It's probably easier with two people," she theorized. "And we should wait until I get home, anyway. You have enough on your plate over the next few weeks as it is."

"True." Shizuru bent her neck as Sumi wiggled onto his back in her lap, and Natsuki watched her scratch his fluffy belly. "Should we get an akita, or would you prefer another breed?"

She considered that for a few seconds. "I'm not sure," she then admitted, because as much as Natsuki adored dogs in general, she didn't know a lot about the common traits of the various breeds. "I think we should probably see what our options are around Fuuka, and then start narrowing them down based on what we find."

"Very logical," Shizuru complimented her. "But focusing on the immediate future, what are your plans for today?"

"Ideally, they'd involve me getting my ass on a plane back to Kyoto," she retorted dryly.

"I know," came the reply, along with a small, empathetic smile. "But in actuality?"

Natsuki sighed and eyed the clock in the lower corner of the monitor. "In actuality, I've apparently been assigned a local guide. Volkov-san should be picking me up in 20 minutes or so to take me to a few key spots in the city."

"I hope you're planning on dressing warmer than that," Shizuru commented, and pointed to the tank-top she was currently clad in. "It's what – at least minus five outside there?"

Her lips twitched into a smile at the familiar needling. That alone warmed her more than a dozen electric blankets would. "I am," she promised. "Remember the bomber jacket you bought me last year?"

The tawny head tilted. "The black leather one with the white wool lining?"

"That's the one."

"I thought I saw your black turtleneck in your suitcase as well."

"... yeeeees."

"And your white beanie."

Natsuki gave up and started laughing. "What am I – a life-sized Barbie doll for you to dress up?"

"No." Shizuru's return chuckle tickled her ears. "Natsuki is the love of my life, as well as the most beautiful woman in the world. It's simply my responsibility to keep her healthy." Pause, and a grin that would have made the Chesire cat proud to behold. "Besides, you look fantastic in a turtleneck."

"I'm assuming you want pictures?"

"You know me so well."

"You bet I do." She smiled and pressed a kiss to two of her fingertips, then touched them gently to the computer's camera. "I should get going. I'll text you a picture of Dress-Up Natsuki soon, okay?"

"Alright." Shizuru waggled her fingers at her, then lifted one of Sumi's paws and waved that at her, as well. "Be safe. I love you."

"I love you too." It took her several seconds to find the willpower to end the videocall, and she sighed into once more quiet room as the window closed. "Shit," she then cursed and glanced behind her at the plush toy still halfway tucked under the covers. "I didn't even thank her for that."

Natsuki groaned as she climbed off the bed and closed the computer, then secured her phone and poked at it a few times. "Reminder," she spoke into it as she flipped her suitcase open and dug out the turtleneck and beanie that her lover had requested her to wear. "This afternoon, thank Shizuru for the damn wolf, you ingrate."

The phone dinged obediently before it was pocketed, and Natsuki spent a few minutes pulling on and adjusting the tight, black turtleneck; then cursed as the dry air made her hair crackle, and smoothed that down before settling the knit beanie on top of it and shrugging into the jacket.

"Hm." She eyed her reflection in the mirror mounted on the wall next to the door, and gave the jacket's high collar a few twitches. Another motion settled the entire length of her hair over one shoulder, and she gave herself another once-over before holding the phone out in front of herself, sticking her tongue out and taking a picture.

The other phone in room rang, and she picked up the receiver and cradled it between her ear and her shoulder as she pocketed the key-card to the room and reminded herself to switch to English. "Hello?"

"_Good morning, Miss Kuga,_" the pleasant, female voice on the other end told her. "_I have a Mr. Volkov here to see you. Should I send him up?_"

"No need," Natsuki replied; flicking through her photos to the most recent one and studying it critically. "Tell him I'll be down in two minutes."

"_Very well, Miss. Have a nice day._"

"You too." Natsuki sent the photo on its way and hung up the phone, then tugged on her boots and – after a final survey of the room – left.


End file.
